This is why there are no female libertarians – feminism and liberty

I was thinking of starting a quick discussion about libertarianism and feminism and how the two go together, because well it could be rather entertaining.

Disclaimer: I am white, male, Romanian, and an engineer, with a huge penis. I mean massive. You should see this thing. So I maybe do not have the full nuances of Americanese society or the blessing of an education in intersectionality at a social sciences college. Which I think is a good thing, as I talk general principle not the particularities of this or that society. Onwards, then.
Also disclaimer: while I use terms like men and women in the article, it goes without saying I do so for the sake of brevity, do add how many ever other identifications in there.

Feminists for liberty

So let’s get ready to rumble. In the blue corner we have a lot of libertarians who are against the concept of feminism, for a wide variety of reasons (from philosophy to actual misogyny). In the red (well pinko mostly) corner, feminists like good ol’ Lizzie NB from you know which site, who says feminism is part of libertarianism, I think. She has that whole feminist for liberty thing going.

Personal view: I am not a feminist. I do support full liberty and rights for women. I do not believe men/women are superior/inferior in any way, though I believe there are some biological differences. Those differences are irrelevant from a philosophical point of view. Beyond the State and the Law, the main concerns of libertarianism, I think people should respect each other and treat each other as equals.

So what is my disagreement with feminism? And to be clear, I do not qualify this by stating third wave/radical/intersectional/postmodern/critical theory/whatever feminism. Feminism period. Well, it is the same with my disagreement with any form of identity politics. Any form of group politics, group rights. The way I see it, it is quite inherent in identity politics to devolve into tribalism and collectivism. It is just human nature. In the end, these movements will fill with self-interested people who profit from them and with people with various ideological ideas beyond the scope of the movement. These people will be interested in grievance mongering, keeping conflicts, and hijacking the movements for other reasons. Inevitably, the demand for positive rights or privileges appears.

Women were not equal to men throughout history. The fact that I believe feminism is not a solution does not mean I discount the problem. Saying communism was a disaster for Russia is not saying Tsarist Russia was just great. I think actually advocating liberty for all is the solution, without going down the path of identity politics. I am sympathetic to arguments that liberty for all is fine, but a certain group’s liberty is more restricted/infringed than other groups, and it should be highlighted, but, in the long term, doing this via identity politics can be counterproductive. You can highlight it strongly without different terms for this. The liberty movement has a long history of supporting equal rights, and can attack a particular injustice without attaching it to identity terminology.

Unlike feminists for sharia

Also, it goes without saying that most of these movements – sex, sexual orientation, race – will be inevitably taken over by ideological leftist – which is the standard left MO – and high jacked for entirely different purposes. The reaction of the left-wing press to organizations like Pink Pistols is quite relevant. Or the environmental movement dominated by watermelons (you know, green on the outside, red on the inside). In the end capitalism is the true problem, because of course. It always is.

Now Lizzie, or people like Christina Hoff Sommers, may say at this point that there is plenty she disagrees with from left feminists and they claim they want a different type of feminism, which is in fact about equal rights and liberty. But that, to me, is like saying oh we don’t want the current big bureaucratic state, we want a competent efficient big bureaucracy. Not gonna happen, as the problems are inherent in bureaucracy and will inevitably reach this point. The same goes for feminism. What the world needs is not more labels and groups and tribalism.

I do not want to suggest that people who identify as libertarian feminists are not real libertarians or something like that. Just that the second label is unneeded and can be quite counterproductive.

About sexism, it is quite important to define it because “anything some feminist does not like is sexism” is bullshit. To give an example, I have heard many a feminist call sexism that a man tells another man a joke that a woman overhears and finds offensive, even if not directed at that woman. Well, tough shit. I my-very-self sometimes like to tell improper jokes, transgressive, or jokes which are offensive just for the sake of being offensive. Jimmy Carr built a very lucrative career on this. If you are bothered, that is your problem and none of mine. I will have to go with the thicker skin thing here. I mean honestly, the world is a nasty place, and it ain’t gonna change soon. So I think a thicker skin is universally useful advice.

Patrice was offensive to women, but it was funny

That is offensive to women, is an oft heard claim. Which women? Are all women offended by the same thing? Who made someone official spokespersons for all women (good gig if you can get it)? Another thing is men will not behave towards women exactly like they behave towards other men and the same goes for women. This is not sexism, it is just nature. It is, as they say, OK.

Is there sexism in the libertarian movement? Well yes, like everywhere. Except the US Democratic party, where there are zero sexists. Furthermore libertarianism attracts a lot of… let’s say non mainstream people, due to not wanting laws against non-violent behavior, irrespective of how in poor taste that behavior may be. Can libertarian men change towards being less sexist / offensive to some women? Sure, probably some of them could.

But here is the problem: I hear many claim casual sexism is what turns women from libertarianism. I am sorry, but this is nonsense. If casual sexism puts you off your principles, your principles were not strong in the first place, and inevitably you would repent and write for Salon about being an ex-libertarian. A community is nice and all, but principles should somewhat transcend that.

Now, of course, ideas reaching people is important. If someone is exposed to libertarian ideas they may become interested in researching further and thinking about it, and in the end developing the principles, so it is important not to turn people off directly. This can use some work for libertarians, including better outreach towards womenfolk. Also, it should be a basic goal in life not to be a complete asshole, sexism or otherwise.

Sadly, the notion that libertarianism is not popular mostly because of marketing issues rings hollow to me. Most people, men and women, do not really have strong principles, do not really research and think about why they believe what they believe. They are just not interested in what libertarians are selling. The movement is small and even doubling the numbers will keep it small. And better marketing will sadly not change much. Looking at the major challenges of spreading libertarianism, casual sexism is not one. Which is sad because it would probably be easier to fix. Of course, that does not change the premise of trying not to be offensive for no apparent reason. This is basic politeness.

Still an improvement! See below for the list of 80s stuff, and I forgot, comics! Judge Dredd is an 80s product. Too bad Karl Urban movie didn’t do so well – he was a great Dredd. Supposedly there’s a Dredd TV show in the works and producers want him for the role.

You have discovered our secret – Adam Sandler is the shadow gestalt of GenX, eternal and unstoppable. Powered by our darkest fears and basest appetites, he comes out to haunt us with our failures. Yet we are helpless, for he is us and we can do nothing.
He is our Woodstock and our Vietnam, Pennywise the Clown hiding in the sewers of our collective unconscious.
Behold, our sins brought before us and displayed for all to see:

Budget
$88,000,000 (estimated)

Gross
$78,747,585 (USA) (8 November 2015)
$244,866,996 (worldwide)

John Titor
on August 5, 2017 at 2:42 pm

You mock, but just you wait. Think of all the garbage that has been made to cater to the Boomers. That is your destiny.

Pan Zagloba
on August 5, 2017 at 2:54 pm

I don’t mock, Adam Sandler’s continued profitability baffles me, and his success cannot be blamed on Boomers, or Millenials or any other generation! He’s 100% on us.

But, I don’t expect our shit will get the same reverential treatment as Boomer shit. Look at Transformers – that’s a GenX icon, and Bay went and fucked with it to appeal to general audience without regard for what the core fans wanted. I mean, it worked, Transformers were retarded shit in the first place, and those make fuckton of money too, but still.
Or Ghostbusters – how did that work for us? It didn’t, it got Millenialed to fuck and back!
A-Team? Grim reimagining for general audiences.
Does Ghost in the Shell count? That was remade by a fanboy, and was unexpectedly good. All I ask is that the hypothetical Robotech movie have the same treatment.

commodious spittoon
on August 5, 2017 at 3:29 pm

GitS was worth a shit? Maybe I’ll check it out after all.

ScarJo turned me off the project. Not that I wanted an “authentic” Kusanagi, but one who wasn’t the sole focus of the film. I loved the first SAC (the major arc, anyway) because of the whole political intrigue/government corruption angle. It transcended but didn’t eclipse Kusanagi’s existential wonderment, and gave the series more heft and staying power. So when I heard ScarJo announced, I thought Oh, well, they’re just making another shlock action movie with a money printer name attached.

I prefer GITS: SAC myself – but the new movie did have some excellent moments – taking the puppetmaster approach, I believe the plotline and “villain” was actually fleshed out my more fully than in the first anime movie. Good on the whole – I’ll be picking it up – but some characters like Kitano’s version of Aramaki – were disappointing.

LT_Fish
on August 5, 2017 at 3:39 pm

“much more fully” – dammit.

Pan Zagloba
on August 5, 2017 at 3:42 pm

It wasn’t good. But it was GitS, and that’s all I could reasonably ask for. There are scenes and shots that are straight from the first GitS movie, but there’s new stuff that does fit into the overall theme. Also what I think were couple references to Mamoru Oshii’s other works.

Scarlet was…adequate-ish? Major is not an emotional character, and this is set early in her career, her being shelled is a very recent event. Could have used a better actress, but she didn’t detract from the movie.

commodious spittoon
on August 5, 2017 at 3:56 pm

My major complaint with ScarJo, besides being a budget sump, is Lucy.

Pan Zagloba
on August 5, 2017 at 4:07 pm

Oh, and reason I brought it up in GenX discussion is that the movie is heavily influenced by the 1995 GitS movie by Oshii. It has less philosophy and more explanation of politicking (inter- and intra-governmental) that forms the background of the plot. I don’t remember SAC well so not sure how much you’ll like it if it’s your preferred version.

Somalian Road Corporation
on August 5, 2017 at 5:01 pm

It has some OK visuals, but Johansson is pretty bad at that whole “acting” thing, the villain is boring as hell and could be lifted directly from Captain Planet (see also, Robocop remake), Takeshi is just meh…

I rewatched it again after the bluray came out and it did not improve on a second viewing.

one true athena
on August 5, 2017 at 1:11 pm

There’s a commercial playing that’s basically a long riff on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and everytime I see it I wonder how many people know what it’s even referencing at this point. As a GenXer myself, I feel like my generation really overestimates the appeal of things we liked back then.

TV shows too. Come on, Magnum PI, A-Team, Dynasty, Yes, Minister, Family Ties, The Simpsons, The Young Ones… it may not always have been good, but they had style and a voice.

Can we also argue Heavy Metal? Although some bands started in late 70s, 80s is when metal hit big?

Oh, and cyberpunk – that shit was so 80s it hurts.

And video games took off in the 80s – Civ, Pirates!, Zelda, Mario, FF, Ultimas 1-6, Wing Commander.

John Titor
on August 5, 2017 at 1:34 pm

Yes but half of those shows have not aged well in the post-Babylon 5 extended seasonal/series plot world we inhabit today. Yes, Minister still succeeds because of its timeless ideas and The Simpsons is more a 90s kids thing that anything else, but you’ll get a lot of eyerolls from non-GenXers over Magnum PI or the A-Team.

Heavy Metal, sorta, but really the fact that people like Alice Cooper were performing in 1968 makes it questionable as a ‘generational’ thing. Cyberpunk hasn’t aged well either, mostly because so much of it existed at a time just before computers became a commonplace thing. Video games, sure, but Japan gets more credit for that than anything else.

Pan Zagloba
on August 5, 2017 at 1:41 pm

post-Babylon 5 extended seasonal/series plot world we inhabit today.

Is this true? I don’t watch a lot of TV and yes, GoT and Walking Dead are popular. But my impression was that big shows are CSI/NCIS spinoffs, sitcoms and such, which might have a season arc that pops a few episodes at best, but are still designed to be self-contained.

It would be interesting to try rebooting one of the 80s show like Magnum, don’t try to update beyond style and see what happens. I guess McGuyver reboot didn’t do well, but then again, I think it tried updating the formula to be more modern and relevant…

LT_Fish
on August 5, 2017 at 1:41 pm

The Young Ones has aged perfectly because college students stay stupid no matter when the period. There are a couple Thatcher-specific jokes, but 95% of the humor is so absurdist it doesn’t matter. And the music performances are great – included because it gave them a bigger budget as a “variety” show than as a sitcom ;p

Highly recommend the British R2 dvd set (both seasons for 9 pounds….) – whycome no blu-ray???

John Titor
on August 5, 2017 at 1:50 pm

I am basing this off of Millennial tastes, and yeah, this problem starts to emerge when you expose them to ’80s cool’ like Magnum. If they grew up with something they’re obviously more responsive to it, but in some cases its like trying to get them to watch Taxi or the Andy Griffith Show. It’s just too out of their cultural zeitgeist, writing has changed, structure has changed, the tropes are too familiar now, etc.

John Titor
on August 5, 2017 at 1:51 pm

But remember, a percentage of this generation apparently unironically likes Girls, so you can take solace in that.

Pan Zagloba
on August 5, 2017 at 1:22 pm

Yup. Deadpool used it as a joke at least.

But that reminds me, there’s a scene in Spiderman:Homecoming that’s a recreation of a scene in FBDO. They at least provide visual reference two seconds later, as he runs past a TV screen showing that very scene. I still missed it, so no way target audience knew it.

Here’s the deal: the reason we were named Gen X in the first place is because there are so few of us, sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials. There are simply not enough of us to define the common gestalt compared to the huge cohorts before and behind us. We will never control popular culture the way our parents did. Do you know how sick I am off listening to music created about the same time I was?
But the Boomers rock isn’t being replaced by Gen X’s, it’s being replaced by the music of the Millennials.

The feminists I have spoken with and listened to take the wage gap as an article of faith. This is the belief which energizes them, so I think that is the reason they maintain it in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Here’s a fun thing to do: ask a feminist what rights men have that women don’t have. You will get a blank stare followed by a what-about-ism.

The idea that women in countries like the US are suffering under unbearable sexism is ridiculous. Last time I checked:

-men die 7 yrs sooner than women on average
-80% of suicides are men
-90% of work place deaths are men
-80% of homeless people are men
-90% of prisoners are men
-75% of murder victims are men

But oh no! A woman walked through NYC and strange men said things like “hello” and “you look nice today”. The horror!

I was going to say something similar to this. The whole women are held down by the patriarchy thing is utter bullshit in most areas of work. In the blue collar world that I have lived my whole life in, a young man goes to work on a framing crew, where a comparable starting position would be low level office work that go to the young ladies. A woman has a far better chance of getting an easy job. I have known one female carpenter in my life (she was a tough lady). Not because women can’t do the work, rather, why the hell would they want to? It is hard work. Why do that when they can sit in an office?

To be fair, ENB and CHS which I have mentioned do not support the wage gap thing. Hoff Sommers is quite reasonable in other things as well. I am not sure why exactly they still identify as feminists though

Amen, Bill. I consider the men who go out of their way to proclaim that they’re feminists to be suffering from something parallel to the oikophobia that makes them diss America because they feel guilty about living better than most of the rest of the world.

Yup. Just like the SNL sketch starring Tom Brady in which he gives advice on how to avoid accusations of sexual harassment at work. Brady and Armisen say the same things to female coworkers, but Armisen IS committing harassment, while Brady is not. The three simple tips they gave were:

Which unintentionally points out the absurdity of sexual harassment. It’s subjective. If the person likes it, than anything up putting your dick in them is acceptable, if they don’t like it then any advance is harassment. How could having jaws based off the whims of someone’s internal emotion go wrong?

Despite your unintentionally hilarious fat-finger typos, I mostly agree. But there is some real sexual harassment, like when someone in power over an employee implies or demands favors for career advancement, or when someone corners another employee and is disgustingly sexual (not “sexist” and not just complimentary or flirty) and even touches the other employee (yes, this happened to me, and yes, I damn well reported it).

The problem is when people want to equate “He said I was pretty!” “He opened the door for me!” with sexual harassment. That is just stupid, and very similar to saying “Man, I wish I hadn’t drunkenly slept with that guy”=RAPE.

The rubric here is that SJW should decide what people make
and governments should then enforce it;
reasonable people will decide, not markets and not owners.

I invite such thinkers to do this:
* start your own company
* pay the women twice what such professions normally make
* pay the men half what such professions normally make
* live happily ever after….good luck with that….I for one don’t care.

The problem is that this has nothing to do with autonomy or freedom;
it has everything to do with you telling you what to do with your enterprise and your property,
to which the proper reply remains “fuck off, slaver”

Feminism and the left appeal to largely to emotional reasoning (which is more common on average in females than males) and exploit feelings of powerlessness to prop up their nefarious beliefs. Don’t see how it’s more complicated than that.

Of course, ENB achieving the slightest amount of power through social capital and then using it in the most petty and vindictive way possible is not reflective in any way of her feelings of powerlessness.

I’m not saying feelings of powerlessness is solely an attribute of women, more just that her behaviour supports my point. As does going “yeah, those years of peer reviewed neurological studies that show a clear indication between sex and gray/white matter structure in the human brain, including differences in white matter structure itself? Doesn’t exist because science hurts my feelings.”

That difference exists only because women are socialized differently. If parents didn’t have unconscious bias against women women would be like men. Just not assholes. Men are naturally assholes. Women would be just like men but better. Just socialize em properly is all

Ah ha, but the feminists have given us the rope to hang them with. Specifically, neurological studies and autopsies have been done on late-term abortions and miscarriages where complex brain matter has already developed. And those patterns are present even before they left the womb. I wonder how you socialize someone before they even exist.

PieInTheSKy
on August 5, 2017 at 1:49 pm

But did the pregnant woman know the sex of the fetus? Because if she did …

Pan Zagloba
on August 5, 2017 at 1:51 pm

I wonder how you socialize someone before they even exist.

Such is the insidious power of The Patriarchy. It’s as evil and ever-present as the midichlorians.

Yes, Trump was formed by The Patriarchy itself, not by his father’s seed!

John Titor
on August 5, 2017 at 1:55 pm

See, I’m hoping they go with a new Lysenkoism where evolution itself is a manifestation of The Patriarchy. How dare the most adaptive survive! That assumes adaptive privilege!

PieInTheSKy
on August 5, 2017 at 12:57 pm

Well any good gender studies professor will tell you neurologist don’;t know what they are talking about because they did not study gender studies

What I find more offensive is that it is just assumed that anyone that makes a slightly sexist stupid joke, “make me a sandwich” is therefore a sexist pig. WTF happened to some things just being a joke? People who play the outrage card at pure silliness have zero credibility imho. I think most people outside of the professional pontificator class are not outraged as easy as said professional pontificators. Most people have to deal with actual important things in their lives.

For someone who threw a temper tantrum over someone else’s open and vague joke that she saw as ‘offensive’ she seems to be perfectly willing to spew open and vague statements that can be seen as ‘offensive’.

I used to screenscrape and make my own RSS feeds to get around this idiocy, but RSS itself has been on a totally ridiculous decline because of the return of 90s portalization, and now it’s just too much.

A husband’s Instagram post about loving his wife’s “curvy” size has sparked a backlash online about body image and feminism.
American entrepreneur Robbie Tripp, who describes himself as “husband to a curvy goddess”, posted a photograph of him and his wife, explaining in a popular post that becoming a feminist taught him that “curvy” women could be sexy.

Ok, my new youtube channel is really getting my creative juices flowing. I’m having a lot of fun with this honestly. Decided to make a “response” video to Diversity and Comics – a bit more of an indie bent based on some titles that came out this week.

I do have another DVD review up at the channel from earlier this week – Congolese noir/neo-noir “Viva Riva”. Next week we go for a Serbian vintage!

Not sure if I’ll have a capsule review of French flicks this next week – mainly because I haven’t seen either of the titles for this week previously.

Damn, that Hillbilly comic sounds and looks amazing. All the stuff you show looks cool (Galaktikon made me go “Judge Dredd!” when you flipped the page, and it sounds like it has a similar sensibility when it comes to satire), but Hillbilly is head-and-shoulders above others.

Anything Eric Powell does is amazing. (his OCs and solo projects – gorgeous art and writing). He’s also done a couple 100% 1st Amendment books – “Satan’s Sodomy Baby” #1 and #2. I could easily do a longer video just talking about him since I’ve got every Goon book and nearly all the merch since his first mini-series in ’99 – some good interview stuff and a few sketches and prints, etc. I may not agree with him on all his political opinions, etc – but he’s a great guy (big roller derby fan too).